Smoke and Mirrors
by in these chains
Summary: This is an entry for the Neopian Times I'm going to submit, and I'd appreciate feedback. Basically, a Neopian family is pulled into events beyond their control. All they have is each other, can they save Neopia?


**Author's Notes: I'm putting this up here first, but I'm trying to get this into the Neopian Times before I do. Basically, it's so I find out how many words are in it, because WordPerfect doesn't have a word count. **

**Chapter One: Roses**

The world started to fall apart on December 31, 2005. That was my first day on Neopets and I was new to Neopia. My intentions were to create and adopt some pets, get a Neohome, maybe get into the Neopian Times, and hopefully get a paintbrush or two. I came to Neopia hoping for adventure, but didn't expect to find it. I didn't know that life as I knew it would change quite soon, that events would spin out of my control, or even that I would find a friend in the snowy forest I had gotten lost in.

"Ugh, perfect," I muttered, leaning against a tree. I was in a forest of some sort, dense and ancient looking. Snowflakes filtered down between the trees, and the snow had been falling for a long enough time for the entire forest floor to be covered in it. Even though the scenery was beautiful, there was still the tiny detail that I was lost. "Retrace your steps, Lindsay, just retrace your steps."

I turned around and saw more trees, and my tracks were everywhere from pacing and kicking the snow. I then realized I had no way of knowing which way I had come in from.

"Why me?" I muttered, leaning with my back against a tree. "All I wanted to do was create a pet. But no, I have to go 'ooh, look at the cute little whatever-it-is,' and chase it into the stinking forest that's not even ON THE MAP!" The little animal I had chased in here was, unbeknownst to me at that time, an Angelpuss.

I pulled my map of Neopia out of my pocket and searched it again for a forest, but the only thing that came close was the Haunted Woods, and I was certainly not in the Haunted Woods. I'm kind of short for thirteen years old, and have short, layered dark brown hair highlighted what used to be neon red, but now is fading to an autumn leaf color. I wear braces and contacts, but occasionally I wear glasses. On this day, I had opted for the glasses. I prefer wearing dark colors as opposed to lighter, and I hate skirts unless I have pants under them. I'm also American. On this day, I was wearing my black trenchcoat over my clothes, a black ear band, and black snowboots that reached my knees. I was quite comfortable, temperature-wise. But I was lost. I banged my head against the tree. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Ni-

"You know, if you keep doing that, you're going to hurt yourself," said a high little British-accented voice from somewhere above me. I looked up. A little animal, looking like a cross between a squirrel and a cat, with a column of red hair going down her back and around her neck until it reached her tail, was sitting on a branch a few feet above my head.

"That's the general idea," I said.

"Well, if you want to bang your head against trees, make sure you don't hit it on a pointy piece of-"

"OW!"

"-bark," the animal finished. I rubbed the back of my head. The squirrel-cat was tiny, and couldn't be more than a foot tall on two of her back legs. "What's your name?"

"I'm Lindsay. Well, my username is canustakemyheart, but most people just call me Lindsay. Who - and i what /i , if you don't mind me asking, are you?"

"I'm a Xweetok," said the little animal happily. "A newly-discovered species in Neopia, but we've been around forever. We just lived in our forest, until Neopia found out. I don't really have a name. See..." She scampered down the tree to sit on the ground next to me. "My mum and dad were walking round Neopia Central, and left me at home. They were looking for a house, you see, so we could be civilized and I could go to Neoschool, and stuff. If they ever get off their rears and i invent /i Neoschool, that is. Anyway, they left a really long time ago. Months and months. So I figure they're either lost like you, with your funny accent, or dead, 'cause they would've come back. They loved me a lot."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said.

"What, that my folks loved me?"

"No, that they've been gone for so long."

"They won't be back, you know, even if they are just lost," said the Xweetok with certainty. She didn't seem sad, just stating a fact. "I know it."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I just said, "How do you know?"

"I just do. You have a home, Lindsay?"

"Uh..."

"That's a no. Are you a newbie?"

"Yeah."

"Then don't worry, newbies get a free week in the Neolodge, but you have to pay for your food."

"Oh, okay," I said, secretly wondering what the heck a Neolodge was. "So, uh, do you live in the trees?"

The Xweetok sat back on her haunches. "Do I look like a Pteri to you? As it so happens, you're blocking the doorway of my house."

"Oh - sorry." I moved aside to reveal a burrow beneath the tree.

"I wasn't in it, was I?" She dug her sharp claws into the tree to scamper up, until she was level with my head. "I've always wanted a regular home, though, with electricity and rooms and beds and such. Ooh! And fireplaces! Always wanted a fireplace."

"If you want, you can stay with me - I mean, I can get you registered and stuff."

"You mean, you'd be my owner?" I couldn't read her expression. She just looked curious.

"Yeah, that's the idea."

"And I'd be your pet?"

"That's a given."

"And I'd have a name?" Now she looked hopeful.

"Of course you'd have a name!"

"What would it be?"

I leaned against the tree. "Oh, I don't know - you should pick you own name. I mean, if I could have, it wouldn't be Lindsay."

"Lindsay's a good name," she said, cocking her head. I made a face.

"If you say so. My point is, you should name yourself."

She thought for a moment, and then ran down the tree into the burrow of its roots. For a moment I thought she was not going to come out and I should leave, but then she came out again, bearing three wilted roses in her mouth and a beaded necklace around her neck, hanging beneath the ruff of red fur. She put the roses on the ground before her front paws.

"Could my name be Roses?"

"We'd have to add something on, but of course. Want your full name to be BuyMeRoses? Those are song lyrics."

She smiled, obviously delighted. "I'd love that."

I smiled too. I had not gotten lost on my way to my first pet. I had merely taken a different road.

The newly named Roses picked up her three flowers in her mouth and jumped on my black pants leg, scampering up my clothing until she was on my shoulder. She was tiny. I could have held her in my cupped hands if she stood on two legs. Roses unzipped my backpack, put her namesake in it, and zipped it back up.

"So, can you get us out of these woods?" I asked. "Because I'm as lost as fly in a mirror funhouse."

"Mum and Dad went that way," said Roses, pointing with one tiny claw. "I watched them go. They went between those two trees. Mum said they were going to follow the road."

I was puzzled. "There was no road. I saw a little angel cat thingy and chased it in here. It was flying."

"That'd be an Angelpuss," said Roses. "They live in here, but they don't like humans. Or me, come to think of that. Just walk between those two trees and go straight."

I did so, and we walked for awhile like that. The trees were becoming less abundant, and the ground harder.

"Is this dirt and grass we're walking on?" I wondered aloud, kicking the half-foot of snow away to reveal pavement.

"Told you there was a road," said Roses, rather smugly.

"Yes, you did," I said. "Look, a sign."

It was a wooden sign with an arrow pointing down the road. Scribbled on it were the words i Neopia Central. /i

"Oh, good, we're not going to freeze to death," I said. We made it to Neopia Central in roughly twenty minute. "Now if I were the Pound, where would I be?"

"The Pound?" said Roses, alarmed.

"Relax. I'm just going to register you."

She relaxed visibly. "Okay then."

I tapped the nearest person, an average-sized guy of about my age. "'Scuse me, can you tell us where the Pound is?"

He looked at Roses for some reason (I later figured that he was trying to see if she looked scared or sad, which she would if I had been going to abandon her), and then said, "Down Bookshop Alley, big gray building with the word 'POUND' in iron letters."

"Thanks," Roses and I both said.

This guy was indeed right, it was impossible to miss. It looked like a boot camp, with curled barbed wire on the outer walls. Roses and I glanced at each other, and then I walked up to the door and pressed the button on the speaker set into the wall.

"Uh, hello?"

"State your business, and you will be directed to an office depending on whether you are here to adopt or abandon-"

"Uh, neither? I'm here to register a pet."

There was a pause on the other end of the doohicky. Then, "I see. Come to Rose's office."

I grinned at Roses as the left gate opened and we walked down the path. It was lined with roses of every color except black. "Your kind of garden, huh?"

The Uni inside was pink and smiling, and filled out Roses's registration papers quickly. "All right, your name is officially BuyMeRoses, and your owner is officially canustakemyheart."

Roses was so happy I thought she would fall off my shoulder in excitement. She did something I would never have expected her to do, not then and not now. She hugged my face.

"I'm a pet!" she exclaimed.

"And I'm an owner," I replied, grinning. "Let's go apply for a Neohome. I played a few games and I have about seven thousand NP."

"And it's your first day!" Roses demanded.

"Uh...yeah."

"Cool."

Even though she pretended not to be, I figured out on the way to the real estate agency, Roses was as clueless as I was about Neopia. She had lived all her life in the forest, and I had never even been to Neopia, so it was a learning experience for both of us. I applied for land and they said they would Neomail the approved application to my Neolodge room, but when I sheepishly admitted I didn't have one, the Eyrie who was in charge of building said to come back in an hour.

To kill that hour, Roses and I walked around Neopia Central and the Neopian Bazaar. We applied for a bank account, and I put my seven thousand Neopoints in it. After that, with the five hundred Neopoints I had left out of the bank, we window shopped and then got lunch, just getting to know each other. Roses was interested in electricity and plumbing and things, and then when I told her I wanted to become a writer, asked me a million questions about it. Then when the hour was over, we went back to the real estate agency and were informed that we now lived on number 482815 Soup Alley.

"We should probably stay in the Neolodge until we get enough rooms furnished to live in comfortably," I said, standing over the piece of land I now owned.

"Good idea," agreed Roses. She was on my shoulder again. I turned and walked in the direction of Neopia Central, with a feeling that Roses and I were going to be great friends.


End file.
